Imagine if Sidney Crosby had made his return to the Pittsburgh lineup today.

The Penguins superstar postponed his return from post-concussion syndrome at least one more game rather than face the Bruins today. And his absence didn’t hurt Pittsburgh one bit, as the Penguins jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and never looked back en route to a 5-2 win.

Without Crosby, Evgeni Malkin (3 assists) and James Neal (1 goal, 2 assists) continued to be the Penguins’ offensive stars. David Krejci scored twice for the Bruins, who lost Adam McQuaid, Patrice Bergeron and Max Sauve (making his NHL debut) to injuries over the course of the day.

•Veteran goaltender Marty Turco was solid in his Bruins debut. He relieved Tim Thomas to start the second period and made a couple great saves on Jordan Staal and Joe Vitale on breakaways. He finished with 20 saves on 22 shots. Thomas added to his season-high with five straight starts, but left the game after allowing three goals on just 10 shots.

•After the game, Julien said that McQuaid suffered an upper-body injury while Bergeron and Sauve left the game with lower-body injuries. Bergeron clearly blocked a shot in the second period and twice attempted to return to the game but couldn’t skate more than one shift before leaving again.

•Andrew Ference returned to action after missing five games with a lower-body injury. He logged 19:03 of ice time and posted an even rating.

•Boston now leads Ottawa by two points for the Northeast Division lead with two games in hand. The Bruins continue their road trip in Florida with games against Tampa Bay (Tuesday) and the Panthers (Thursday). Here’s my CBSBoston.com column on that matter.

•The Bruins have allowed the first goal five straight games and the first two goals in three of those contests.

Allow me to clarify. I’m not okay with it just because Boychuck came back into the game. I wasn’t ok with the hit at all, and I think it should have been 5. That being said, I can see why they didn’t retaliate after Boychuck returned to the bench. And after the 5th goal was certainly not the time to retaliate. 3 goal game in the closing minutes? Any rough stuff is going to be under extra scrutiny as it relates to supplementary discipline. Thornton or Lucic will probably square off with Malkin first shift on April 3rd.

Malkin had a shift after the fifth goal, so that was the time someone should have chased him out of the place. Saying your okay with not taking a strip off Malkin because Boychuk came back into the game, makes no sense. A cheap shot is a cheap shot, period. I’ve always like the B’s physical play and the fact that they can stick up for themselves, without using their sticks. Boychuk has been a leader when it comes to sticking up for his teammates, somone should squared it with Malkin.

i don’t know if it’s warranted to be embarassed at being a bruins fan but they don’t look good right now. guys are getting hurt, corvo SUCKS, thomas is old and chara is living up to being the most over rated player in the league. this team is capable of turning it around but they need to get healthy, time is running out.

Bruno brings up an excellant point! Bottom line our team has checked out until the playoffs! We are simply going through the motions and losing games and players. I saw one guy shown alone in a sky box number 8 who if looks could kill would have. This is not Boston Hockey maybee Claude has something magical up his sleeve but wow give us a peak or glimmer of hope for next month.

Yeah, Thornton actually had a few words for Malkin after the play. I’m actually glad he didn’t do much more. I find this team too much lately retaliating and the opponent ending up on the PP. It’s good to stick up for your teammate, but not when you put the team at a disadvantage. And oh boy, the penalty kill has been abysmal lately. There is just about always one shorthanded goal against now. Some have just been horrible goals, that should be stopped. However, some games the personel out there just baffles me. Krejci is sometimes being put on the penalty kill. He’s one of the few minus players on a team mostly full of plus players. I think the ineptitude in the penalty kill is even worse for the power play. They keep doing the same thing. Pass it out to the D-man for a slap shot. Sorry guys, most goalies in the league are going to stop those shots. Only team I know in hockey that uses the exact same lines on the PP as during the game (the exception in recent games Rolston being a defenseman). Let’s not stack up all of our offensively gifted players on the PP…oh no. I’m quite glad it was Turco time at least part of the game Sunday. I was hoping he would have started Saturday. Thomas is either tired, injured or has lost his game. He needs a rest. He needs to stop coming out so far. I can’t ever remember him coming out so far from the net on a regular basis. It’s frustrating. There is little risk at this point in letting Turco getting the majority of the games the rest of the way. It’s not like Thomas is doing much better.

I’m actually ok with no retribution on Malkin yesterday for a couple of reasons. Thornton went over right after and made his presence known. I think they were still trying to win the game, so Thornton didn’t want to nullify any potential power play, while still at the same time letting Malkin know he was there. Plus Boychuck came back into the game, which I think makes a big difference. Plus, down two with 5 mins to play is not the time. Wait till the next meeting. I believe they play the Pens one more time in Boston. That is the time for any retribution. That being said, if Boychuck doesn’t come back in the game, they are probably still picking Malkin’s teeth up off the ice. And if I were Bylsma, I would not have had Malkin anywhere near the ice after the boarding, out of fear of a clearly pissed off Lucic taking a run at him, or doing something stupid in retribution.

A little perspective. Yes, your team is sliding and not playing their best hockey but, there are some positives.
You have 83 points, you’re 2nd in the conference, 1st in your division, up by a couple points with 2 games at hand.

Say Ottawa catches you, you’ll drop a few spots but you’re still assured of a playoff spot and maybe even a matchup with Florida in round 1.

Boston is in a funk at a good time. Better now than 5 games before the end of the season or later. The same team had a similar slide last year and everyone was calling for Julien’s head. Look how that turned out.

Now if I keep pep talking you, I may spew my breakfast but things could always be worse and anything can happen once the playoffs start.

Embarrassed to be Bruins fan right now. I had to listen to the game on Saturday, so I don’t really know how they looked, but I unfortunately caught yesterday’s game & what I saw was pretty awful.
From how they executed, or rather how they didn’t execute their system, to the lack of a physical presence, even getting pushed around by a softer Pens squad, it was tough to watch.
After a week of giving Timmy the benefit of the doubt, I’ll say that Turco should get the next start. Yeah, maybe TT shouldn’t have started back-to-back, but something has to change here. He either needs that competitive fire lit under him, or he’s lost his game/been worn out by the workload after a long season/short off season. Either way, he’s off and he’s hurting this team. He’s still my hero, but it is what it is right now.

I agree with B-16. This is a train wreck and I am debating never watching an afternoon game again 0-4 last two weekends. Honestly might skip until playoffs start it is just poor hockey I don’t care who is in the line up. Charra got pushed around like a rag doll (other teams will now try this) and no one sticks up for Boychuck????? These games are really like watching ground hog day we go down quick two and Claude says well I liked the intensity for the remaining 40 mins Claude you might want to rest a game or get glasses we were run over. First period about as bad as I have seen. Enough ranting we are hurt physically no doubt but I think I’m now on the mental hurt list just not good right now very hard to watch.

I was disappointed that someone didn’t or didn’t get the chance to run Malkin out of the building. The B’s have always been good about standing up for each other. As well, I have noticed that Boychuk has done this a couple of times for teammates. I hoped that Lucic or Thornton or Chara or someone else would have atoned for the cheap shot of Malkin’s.

If the B’s are going to do deep into the play-offs then Corvo is going to have to be on the 5-6 pairing and play on the second PP unit. He just has not moved it up defensively, so if he plays against opponents 3rd and 4th lines, hopefully we won’t get hurt.

I was disappointed that McDermid didn’t get a few more shifts. He seems to be another good physical presence on the ice. Turco played well enough to get a start in the near future, hopefully he does.